Page:Chandler Harris--The chronicles of Aunt Minervy Ann.djvu/17



happiest, the most vivid, and certainly the most critical period of a man's life is combined in the years that stretch between sixteen and twenty-two. His responsibilities do not sit heavily on him, he has hardly begun to realize them, and yet he has begun to see and feel, to observe and absorb; he is for once and for the last time an interested, and yet an irresponsible, spectator of the passing show.

This period I had passed very pleasantly, if not profitably, at Halcyondale in Middle Georgia, directly after the great war, and the town and the people there had a place apart, in my mind. When, therefore, some ten years after leaving there, I received a cordial invitation to attend the county fair, which had been organized by some of the enterprising spirits of the town and county, among whom